


part 1 - meeting donghyuck

by summerela



Series: renjun & friends [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fairies, M/M, Tinker Bell & Friends, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, rated G if you turn a blind eye at the cursing and renjun dealing with jaemin's idiocy, what started as a short crack fic became a potential series with small life lessons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 15:10:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21181496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerela/pseuds/summerela
Summary: The tale begins during the preparations of Hallows Eve. Renjun meets Donghyuck and a new friendship blooms in the midst of autumn at Pixie Hollow.





	part 1 - meeting donghyuck

**Author's Note:**

> this idea started out as norenmin, but switched over to renhyuck in the last second. I'm considering on making this a series, and posting drabbles that are interconnected to each other because Renjun! as! Tinker! Bell!  
at the moment, I barely have a plot. and it may remain this way because I've exhausted my creativity for these months. this is a self-indulgent venture :-)

There was, unfortunately, much to be done for the Halloween festivities in Pixie Hollow this year and Renjun, a tinker fairy, had one of the busiest tasks of all. From the stage setup to the mechanics behind the sound and lights system, Renjun had taken to flittering about the whole day trying to make sure pieces were in places and the multiple builds were running smoothly.

It also didn’t help that his best friends had pretty much finished their jobs and were gate crashing his solo party of one aka his plans of having a peaceful meal by the Pixie Dust Tree.

Renjun feels the tendrils of a pumpkin vine snap up and curl around his wrist when he’s inches away from biting into his honeycomb cake. With a scowl, he looks up to see Jaemin beaming at him with an unapologetic smile as the garden fairy descends upon him and graces Renjun with his and their other friend’s presence.

The animal fairy, whose arm is clutched tightly in Jaemin’s as if taken hostage, gives Renjun a slight roll of his eyes when his feet touches down first—the wings behind him fluttering softly in the wake of the cool autumn breeze.

“I was having such a good time breaking the rules and playing around with the little black cat in the woods. But Jaemin had to scream and scare the kitty away.” Jeno complains, not even asking before taking a piece of Renjun’s poppy-puff roll. Renjun swats at his hands but the effort is futile. The animal fairy sticks his tongue out at him as he teasingly licks his fingers free of the offense.

“Once the higher-ups find out you’re fraternizing with dangerous creatures, you’ll regret your love for cats.” Jaemin says disapprovingly. He sighs as if he were one of the ancient fairies in their humble community, burdened by years of babysitting all the younger fairies of Pixie Hollow but when in reality, he was the youngest of them three.

However, that doesn’t stop him from floating above the two of them, acting like a nagging mother as he decides to busy himself with brushing the leaves out of Renjun’s hair.

“That’s only because when you went to the Mainland during that one spring, you met that grouchy cat in the park and he chased you all the way into a trashcan.” Jeno points out, trying to take another roll. Renjun successfully slaps his hand away this time, but the pout Jeno gives him in response (how ironic that his cute acts only surface in trying times) has his resolve thinning, and eventually Renjun accedes with a dissatisfied grunt.

“That fat cat wanted to eat me!” Jaemin squawks as he hovers above them, pixie dust falling onto their heads from his agitated wings.

“Jaeminnie, get your shedding tendencies away from my food.” Renjun groans, trying to pluck off the shimmering gold material from his delicious fruit. “If this blueberry floats out of my hands, I’m going to get my hands around your neck and you won’t live to see Hallows Eve.”

Jaemin smirks and leans down close right in front of the tinker’s face. “Oh, getting kinky now aren’t we?”

Renjun stares back with no expression on his face, but he manages to flick Jaemin straight in the forehead, and hears Jeno’s laugh loudly as Jaemin gets catapulted a few feet away from them.

“Should’ve seen that coming, Jaemin-ah.” Jeno snorts.

Jaemin wails for a good few seconds over Renjun’s blatant assault, but he picks himself up quickly and dusts off his pants when both Jeno and Renjun ignore him—too busy munching on the food.

“Why are you alone anyways? Weren’t you working with Jisung today?” His previous demeanor is replaced now with curiosity, as the garden fairy crawls back to the trunk of the tree and plops his butt down right next to Renjun.

Fast-flying fairies didn’t really have a role in preparations as they didn’t have a specialty of focus. But due to their unique ability, they became a valuable helping hand in just about anything. Renjun chews on his cake thoughtfully.

“I may have sent him off to do something else. And the reason may or may not have been because he broke the tenth item he’s touched today.”

Jaemin quirks an eyebrow at this and reaches a hand out to snatch away Renjun’s fourth cake to be consumed, right out of the unsuspecting tinker’s palm. “Eat more fruit, less cake.” Renjun lets Jaemin off this time, and consequently stares at the swapped-in acorn sitting in his hand. It is clearly not a fruit.

Anyways.

“I felt bad about sending him off to help the light fairies, but I figured if there’s anything he can’t possibly mess up, it would be something more abstract and less tangible.” Renjun gives Jeno a deadpan expression, already reading his thoughts, “And no, I didn’t send him to Chenle because if I did that, all of Pixie Hollow would be underwater now and no one would be able to fly and do anything.” Jeno makes a pained sound in response, but he gets the hint.

“Who knew the two youngest would be a force to be reckoned with.” The animal fairy shrugs as he slings an arm around Renjun’s shoulders.

“Seriously? Weren’t you the one who introduced the two? Considering how worried you were over your favorite fairy needing more friends beyond his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s two best friends? And how his awkward and slow social abilities were even making other fast-flying fairies doubt he was one of them?” Renjun knocks a knuckle against the fairy’s head, ignoring the fact that Jeno was trying to squirm his way into a cuddle even though all Renjun wanted to do in that moment was sleep. In his own bed. Right now. By himself. Fuck fairy interactions and cuddling.

He couldn’t wait for the day to be over.

Renjun hears Jaemin launch into a passionate monologue about how Chenle is the sweetest water fairy ever and how he wouldn’t lead their clueless youngest astray with his ideas, and Renjun immediately blocks out yet another one of Jaemin’s listing off multiple reasons why everyone should love Chenle and how his laughter is beautiful and—

Something catches Renjun’s attention.

It’s nearing night time, the sun having set a few minutes ago so Pixie Hollow is in peak dusk hours.

But the beam of light in the distance is bizarre, disrupting the still autumn colors of the forest. It almost seems as if something is amiss.

“Hey, do you guys see that?” Renjun points a finger in the direction of the dancing light, now moving at the speed of a tornado as it spins in circles angled towards the sky. Almost as if someone was putting on a light show.

“Let’s go check it out.” Jaemin returns the puzzled look, getting up in alarm. “Maybe someone needs our help."

Fortunately they have finished eating so with nothing left behind, the three fairies fly in the direction of the light: the outer woods where fairies rarely venture.

“Oh, this is definitely _not_ dangerous.” Jeno mutters as he dodges a falling old branch. They’re about a good meter into the less frequented part of the forest. Reminders to why it’s a place the fairies of Pixie Hollow rarely visit are mercilessly shoved in Renjun’s face. He barely misses getting smacked in the head by a falling berry.

“Says the one playing with a cat earlier,” Renjun shoots back but not before making sure Jaemin doesn’t fly away on his own. “Slow down, Jaemin, rushing into the situation won’t help.”

Jaemin’s always felt a need to jump in and help others whenever he detects the slightest bit of trepidation or worry in a situation. It’s no different that in their current situation, their youngest is anxiously flying ahead, expertly dodging the old forest’s falling debris.

“Geez, who could be playing around in here? It’s like a war zone.” Jeno breathes out as he finally catches up to the other two, latching a hand out to grab Renjun by the arm.

They reach a clearing and lo and behold, there’s the sound of clapping and someone giggling.

Renjun sees a familiar pink-brown-haired fairy amidst the autumn leaves on the ground, lying down on a patch of unbothered grass, circled by the leaves as if it were done on purpose and he’s the center of an extravagantly planned performance.

Something clicks in Renjun’s brain but he doesn’t get to march in and yell at the other about it, not when Jeno pushes past him and flies excitedly towards the other.

“Jisung? What are you doing here?”

The fast-flying fairy lifts his head up at the familiar voice and his expression changes from the tired look of before to a shy smile. “Oh, why are you here Jeno?” There’s a blush on his cheeks and if Renjun didn’t know better, he would’ve thought the younger was crushing on the elder. But considering that they are already dating, he’s not sure if that still counts.

Jeno flops onto the tired fairy lying down, laughing when Jisung starts complaining about his weight. But the fairy nonetheless bashfully brings his arms up to wrap them around the older, and Renjun has to look away before he feels like retching out his dinner.

While the two are immersed in a dialogue of their own, Renjun looks around the clearing to figure out where the light is coming from. Jaemin is doing the same, but he’s equally distracted by Jeno and Jisung acting, admittedly, cute to each other.

Relationships always seem like that in Pixie Hollow. Sweet and simple.

Renjun places a comforting hand on the garden fairy’s shoulder, wrenching Jaemin out of his lonesome thoughts. He gets a weak smile in return, but Renjun gets it. It’s hard doting on an oblivious water fairy, especially one as vibrant and extroverted as Chenle. However, Renjun isn’t a fool and he knows Chenle isn’t as oblivious as he seems to be. Jaemin, for all his pining and wistful looks, will definitely get his happy ending soon.

Getting back to the situation on hand, Renjun silently settles onto the ground and accidentally steps on a weakened branch on the ground, making a cracking sound reverberate throughout the peaceful dale. Wincing a bit at the resulting enormity of sound, Renjun casts a side glance at the still giggling pair on the floor.

“Jisung, were you here with anyone?”

The boy opens his mouth in exclamation, ready to return an answer, but a light beam suddenly flashes straight into Renjun’s face.

“Argh!” He grunts out as the blinding light surprises him and he falls back with an oof onto his wings. The impact hurts more his pride than his wings. But opening his eyes to a fairy leaning over him makes all harsh complaints die on his tongue.

Tanned honey skin. Almond eyes that glitter with curiosity and mischief. And an amused smirk on the fairy’s lips shakes Renjun out of his reverie and his face morphs into a displeased scowl—irked that he was put into an embarrassing situation by a fairy that seemed too confident and pleased by his antics, at the expense of another’s.

“Need help there, tinker bell?” The fairy cocks a head to the side, holding out a hand.

But Renjun ignores it and gets up himself, dusting off the dirt from his emerald green clothes, frowning when he notices one of the white pom poms on his shoes has gotten dirty from his scuffle with nature.

“Does it give you satisfaction in shining light into random fairy’s eyes and seeing them fall like idiots right in front of you?” Renjun doesn’t know he’s whining, not until he hears the high-spirited chuckling coming from the light fairy before him. It renders him speechless, hearing such a rich yet childish laughter coming from someone who looks about his age and he closes his gaping mouth lest he wants to be caught looking like a bigger fool than he already is.

“Cute.” The fairy comments off-handedly and he has the audacity to lean forward and pinch Renjun’s cheek before taking a step back and fluttering away. Renjun does gape at him this time and it takes Jaemin, flying into his vicinity and patting away the missed debris on his clothes, for the tinker fairy to remember that his friends caught him looking dumb.

“So…”

“Don’t even breathe one word about this. I will still wring your neck if I have to.” Renjun flushes and avoids Jaemin’s knowing glance. “I think we got our answers already. Pity it was just two fairies fooling around.”

Once he lands in front of the aforementioned light fairy, this time not falling onto his butt, he clears his throat.

“Were you the one behind the crazy lighting from before?” The light fairy turns around, breaking off his conversation with the amalgamation known as Jisung-Jeno, the two still somehow attached to each other, not having moved an inch from five minutes ago.

He quirks a delicate brow and Renjun has to look away to recollect his hardened facial expression.

“Yes? I thought you confirmed I’m a light fairy?”

Renjun tries not to let the other boy get under his skin because he can see the smile on the fairy’s lips, but again, why is he looking there? He quickly averts his eyes up.

“You guys shouldn’t be in these parts of the forest. It’s dangerous. If something happens to Jisung here,” He gestures vaguely at the pair now sharing innocent pecks and immediately regrets looking their way, “Well, I can’t have a moping Jeno on my hands because he’ll cry up a waterfall if something were to happen to Jisung.”

The tanned boy laughs, a sound akin to the tinkling of bells, and then he smiles—genuinely at Renjun. Something catches in Renjun’s throat, but it’s not the dust of the old forest. He blinks away the discomfort.

“I see. Don’t worry about it, I was working with Jisung earlier and he helped me finish up what I needed to do. So with the extra time, he wanted to show me something cool that he was preparing for the Halloween festivities. Something he had been preparing for his boyfriend.” The light fairy leans in as he whispers the last part and Renjun smells cinnamon. He subtly leans back.

Renjun nods, “We should get going though. It’s getting really dark.” He looks worriedly at the receding dusk light peeking through the trees before turning to the two on the ground. “Get up, stop making out. You two are _gross_.”

The two cuddling in a puppy pile right beside them at least have the shame to look embarrassed as they pick themselves up. The light fairy gives him a serious nod, and without further words exchanged, the five fairies fly in the direction they came from.

Somewhere along the way, Renjun ends up on the side of the other as they travel back and he chances a peek at the strange fairy beside him. He wonders how the other was able to so easily befriend Jisung, because he’s sure he’s never seen him around their youngest friend before. And judging from their encounter, the fairy seems to have a lively and enticing personality that draws others in.

He must have been caught staring because the fairy looks straight at him and smiles. No more smirks for the day; Renjun is effectively one dead fairy.

“What’s your name?” The light fairy asks.

“Renjun. And yours?” He gives himself a mental pat on the back for carrying on a civil conversation. Right ahead of them, he sees Jaemin trying to fuss with Jisung’s clothes while they’re flying and sees Jeno butting in to block the former from unnecessarily attaching onto the latter.

“I’m Donghyuck! It’s really nice to meet you and your friends.” Renjun turns back just in time to see Donghyuck flash him a warm smile that seems to bloom beautifully on his face. Like a sunset, even though the sun had set a long time ago.

“Yeah, I suppose it’s nice to meet you too.”

\-----

Renjun never really sought a relationship. As a tinker fairy, for one, he was always swamped with new assignments. He’s sure, if he spoke out and didn’t accept everything thrust at him, he wouldn’t be in his current situation. But it’s always been hard for him to put a boundary on that. Always hard to reject the face of a hopeful fairy, wanting to have something patched up and ready for a purpose of great importance.

And who was Renjun?

Another tinker fairy.

Now that it’s about a few days before the start of festivities, Renjun is in a rut. Simply stated, he can’t concentrate. After meeting Donghyuck and consequently never bumping into the light fairy again, he’s been—to put it lightly—on edge. He’s not dying to see the tanned boy again, but he _is_ wondering how a fairy was able to walk unceremoniously into his life that used to revolve around four other friends and make a lasting impression.

Only to walk straight out and never be seen again.

Because his thoughts aren’t organized as of late, it’s been hard for the tinker fairy to devise creative solutions for the problems on hand. As a result, he’s holed himself in his room; locked his door, after learning that Jaemin and Chenle wouldn’t hesitate to walk straight in without a knock, so that he can gather his wits and fix the broken machine on his desk before midnight. He’s missed dinner, but that seems like a minor concern now.

With a groan, he lies on his back on his bed, staring listlessly at his ceiling. Chenle had insisted on putting up glowing stars for Renjun to look at whenever he needed something grounding. It was such a sweet thought, but Renjun knows Chenle pulled some strings and tricks to obtain the eternally shining pinpoints of light. He doesn’t dare ask. Nothing is coming to mind on how to fix the contraption. Renjun groans as he gets up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, dangling his socked feet in its glum resigned fate, waiting for disappointment to rear its head and defeat Renjun’s engineering spirit.

He walks to his door, not bothering to put on his shoes, and flies to the highest perch of the nearby tree—void of other residents because he really doesn’t feel like talking to anyone.

From up here, he can see the twinkling of the stars in the night sky clearer and breathe in the cold air to clear his thoughts. Down below, life is so small. Him, as a pinpoint amongst many others. It’s no wonder he sometimes feels so insignificant. He wonders what it’s like to be human, to be slightly bigger but not so big that he swallows the universe and its wondrous gifts.

In the dead of night, he can pick out the stray sounds in the silence easily. He can hear shrill laughter and muffled talking, carried up into the trees because of the night wind. If he pays close attention, his mind may tell him that it’s Chenle he’s hearing and another familiar voice. But he’s thinking about his unfinished work while playing with the leaves sticking out of the branch, mindlessly plucking them and letting them flutter away.

The laughter has disappeared but there’s something unsettling in the air. Renjun opens his eyes when he realizes he had momentarily closed them, drifting away into the calmness of the night. When he regains his sight, he sees a pair of familiar almond-shaped eyes peering back at him.

“Holy Mother of Queen Clarion!” Renjun curses as he almost slips and free falls off the branch.

Donghyuck giggles and reaches out a hand; this time, Renjun takes it and he sits up, ending up right next to the light fairy.

“How did you find me up here?” Renjun can’t help but ask, clutching his heart in surprise. He really saw his life flash before his eyes, and now that Donghyuck’s here, he’s not any better off.

“My Renjun sense was tingling.” The boy taps his head in a big gesture, but his subsequent actions prove the contrary. Donghyuck brings his legs up so that he’s resting his head on his knees and looking from the side at Renjun. “What’s up?”

Here is a boy ready to listen to Renjun’s trouble, who isn’t Jeno or Jaemin—the two fairies he practically grew up with and knew everything Renjun wanted to say and thus also knew what exactly to say back. But at times, it isn’t what Renjun wants to hear, not when the responses are what he already knows.

Renjun hardly knows Donghyuck though, so he only gives him a measly reply.

“Trying to clear my mind so I can finish my assignment tonight.”

“Oh? Am I distracting you then?” Donghyuck asks in alarm, getting ready to leave. The little action makes Renjun’s heart swell just a bit larger, and he, to his own surprise, reaches a hand out to place it on the other’s shoulder confidently. Silently signaling a ‘no’. Donghyuck looks just as taken aback, but he pauses and settles back down.

Renjun’s stomach takes this perfect opportunity to growl and he retrieves his daring hand, clutching his hungry tummy in embarrassment.

“I…I forgot to eat earlier.” He mumbles, looking down instead of at Donghyuck’s face. There’s a moment where the silence is weird and Renjun feels self-conscious. Then he hears a soft sound of exclamation.

“Wait, I have something I saved from dinner.” There’s rustling from his side and when Renjun finally garners enough courage to look, he sees Donghyuck thrusting a honeycomb cake in Renjun’s vision.

“Come on, eat up. I’m full and I saved it for emergencies but this seems like an emergency.” The boy grins and Renjun accepts the food shyly with both hands.

“Thanks.” He says as he starts nibbling on his favorite cake, not heeding the enamored gaze of the other as he munches on the offering.

“Has anyone told you that you look like a squirrel when you eat?” Renjun pauses mid-bite and gives the other fairy a flabbergasted expression. He swallows and opens his mouth, “Was that supposed to be a compliment?”

The light fairy’s gaze is focused on Renjun’s lips and Renjun immediately blushes. Donghyuck coughs and looks away, “Sorry. Carry on. Pretend I didn’t say anything.”

Renjun finishes the food in silence and when he does, he turns to Donghyuck to thank him again but the fairy waves it off, instead moving in a bit closer to Renjun saying he’s feeling kinda chilly.

“Did that help?” Donghyuck asks quietly, the close distance making the words echo in Renjun’s ear. He nods, trying to shake off the fuzzy feeling washing over his spine. Renjun feels better admittedly, maybe he just needed some food in his system.

“Are you ready to get back to it?” Donghyuck says, swinging off the branch and now hovering in front of Renjun with an encouraging smile on his face.

There’s a pause in which Renjun is temporarily plunged back into his doubts, but he surfaces quite easily when the support on Donghyuck’s face doesn’t fade. He heaves himself over and flies over to Donghyuck.

“Yeah, I can do it.”

\-----

How Renjun and Donghyuck fall into their easy banter and comforting is a question left for the upper workings of fairy dynamics.

If Renjun had been miffed a day ago about never seeing Donghyuck, he’s unbothered now when he sees Donghyuck every day.

Part of the change in routine is that the last stage of production the tinker fairies need to work on for Hallows Eve were the lights, and collaborating with the light fairies made sense fundamentally. Which also means Renjun gets a faceful of Donghyuck’s bright grins, occasioned by the blur of Jisung who also somehow ends up working on the project.

“Renjunnie, I said it looks better if we put the lights in separate leaf holders so that they can scatter individually~” Donghyuck pouts. Renjun scrunches his nose in response and places his pointer finger on his bottom lip, mimicking the pout to annoy the other.

“But then it’ll look messy Hyuckie! We have enough holders to have a sufficient number of lights on display.”

Jisung, who’s passing by the two of them, slows down while holding something in his hands. Renjun looks at it in alarm, waiting for the object to literally disintegrate before his eyes. “And you call me and Jeno _gross_!” He scampers away when Renjun tries throwing an extra wooden screw at his head.

“You two stick together like snail slime! The two of us can’t even be compared!” Donghyuck hollers back at the blurred figure who’s now too far away to hear.

“Leave him be. He’s sulky because Jeno got distracted by a cat earlier today and ran after it instead of greeting Jisung with a morning hug.” Renjun squats down, trying to piece together the control box for the lights. He had dealt with the measurements yesterday night, written precisely on his leaf pad. Rarely is he off, but he never knows when that might happen.

To his relief, the pieces fit snugly and Renjun starts jumping up in joy because his measurements have paid off.

“Okay, now check this out Hyuck.” Renjun takes the controller and starts fiddling around with the sliders and buttons. The light in question blinks on and glows, an orange hue, as it sits in Donghyuck’s hands. Renjun shifts something and the light rotates. The pixie dust it’s coated in swirls with the movement and Renjun swears he sees something magical as the dust surrounds Donghyuck and casts the light fairy in a similarly ethereal glow.

They’re interrupted when one of the elder fairies comes by and tells them they only have ten minutes left before they supposed to assemble everything.

Shooting Donghyuck a challenging smile, Renjun starts putting together the other controllers. Donghyuck, who catches on fast and has started to dabble in tinkering after spending lots of time with Renjun, also picks up one of the boxes.

They match in ways Renjun couldn’t with his other friends. In a record of eight minutes, they’re done and they slap each other high-fives in triumph.

“Renjun, do you maybe want to hang out with me during the festival?” Donghyuck asks as they make their way to the tent where the other light and tinker fairies are flying about with assorted gears in their hands.

Renjun looks over at the light fairy in surprise, “You don’t already have plans?” The other gives him a shy grin and shrugs casually, “Not really. I hadn’t thought about going initially.”

The tinker fairy stops walking, several questions spring up in his mind that he wants to ask, but the wary look on Donghyuck’s face makes Renjun blurt out the first word that comes to his mouth instead.

“Yes!” He grabs Donghyuck’s arm in his and nods, “Of course, though we may end up with my other friends since I was originally going with them.” The light fairy doesn’t seem bothered by the fact, humming happily when Renjun starts swinging their interlocked arms back and forth.

“We can eat all the pumpkin spice cakes and go on the horror rides. Oh! Maybe we can force Jisung into the corn maze!” Renjun loves the festivities, and to those who know him, would expect this kind of rant. Donghyuck, however, looks at him with a soft smile, as Renjun talks on and on about the activities he wants to do, only stopping once they get back to work.

Renjun doesn’t realize this but somewhere in his heart, a light fairy by the name of Donghyuck has made a home and is going to treasure him for the eternity of Pixie Hollow.

\-----

The Halloween festivities are exactly what Renjun remembers it as, but somehow this year, it seems brighter and more breathtaking even from a distance. His excitement shows, if the pixie dust falling from his wings aren’t an obvious giveaway.

He forgets he’s holding Donghyuck’s hand as he flies ahead of the crew (must have unconsciously grabbed it in an effort to pull the other forward with him as their group of six travels in the air in the direction of the festival).

“Renjunnie is so cute. I hardly see him act this cute in front of me!” Jaemin complains, purposefully loud from behind him.

He turns around in mid-air, just so he can fly back and aim a light kick at the garden fairy’s shin. That unfortunately gets Chenle worried, and Jisung guffaws like a gremlin in the background.

“I’m not cute! And you don’t deserve my acts of vulnerability, Jaeminnie.” Renjun flies out of the reach of Jaemin’s grabby hands, dodging his best friend’s clingy actions.

“Yeah, he’s only cute around you.” Jeno observes with an interested glint in his eyes as he gives the confused light fairy a smirk. Renjun clenches the fist that isn’t wrapped in Donghyuck’s hand, and aims a glare in the smiling boy’s direction.

“Jeno, we talked about this. How can I act cute when you’re the most puppy-like out of us three?” He rolls his eyes when the animal fairy begins to protest. But he cuts off his best friend’s rant.

“Okay less bickering, more flying. I will _not_ be late to this.” Renjun mutters under his breath and zooms ahead, dragging Donghyuck along the way.

The festivities are in full swing and Renjun lands with anticipation.

“Alright guys, let’s head for the sweets first—”

“Actually Renjunnie, I was thinking we do things differently this year.” Jaemin interrupts with a hand raised. Renjun looks at him in question, because he’s not going to lie but he thinks whatever the garden fairy is about to say sounds like a contrived plot to put Renjun into a night of misery.

“Jeno here wants to go on a spooky date with Jisung.” Jaemin starts off.

“What? I said a normal date, you know Jisung’s scared of Halloween!” Jeno says. Jisung almost gives him an offended look but when Jeno sheepishly smiles, Jisung deflates into a blushing mess. Jaemin nods his head as if agreeing, but Renjun and Jeno both know he’s not really paying attention to anything said except whatever he’s going to say next.

“And I want to spend quality time with my favorite fairy, because you all don’t deserve my fantastic gardening skills.” Jaemin points specifically at Renjun as he says this and Renjun laughs. Of course, this was all a plan to spend time with Chenle. He supposes he can put up with this.

“Okay, fine. Just this night. We all need time to ourselves anyways. Goodness knows how many tree trunks I wanted to bang my head against after spending my free time in your company.” Renjun jokes.

“But you spent most of that time with Donghyuck anyways,” Jaemin coughs really loudly, words only heard clearly by the intended recipient. Renjun pinches Jaemin’s side and the other fairy squeals, knocking into Chenle.

Renjun laughs mercilessly and grabs Donghyuck’s arm. “Hurry, let’s fly away before Jaemin tries to kill me on Halloween night.” The light fairy mischievously grins back and the two fly away just as Jaemin swears to expose Renjun’s secrets from his early years as a tinker fairy.

It’s so easy to fall into a comfortable conversation with Donghyuck. They talk about how they discovered their talents when they materialized in the Pixie Dust Tree after their baby’s first laugh. Renjun talks about how the little hammer glowed slightly when he touched it, and how Queen Clarion told him he was destined to make intricate and beautiful things with his golden hands.

He confesses, while they’re chewing on candied acorns and walking between the food stalls with pinkies interlocked, that her words were ingrained in his head since then and they made him believe he _had_ to do his best because he was meant to do so. It devolves into a monologue of a sort, while Donghyuck listens attentively, on how he performs subpar on some days and how it brings him down.

By then, they had finished eating the sticky treat and have walked to the edge of the lake where the light show was supposed to start. The same ones the two of them had worked on in the last three days.

“From the short time I’ve known you, Renjun, I’ve seen what you can do and I believe that you already do your best.” Donghyuck says as he takes a seat by the edge of the water, patting the space next to him for Renjun to sit.

“We will always feel like there’s more we can do, and that’s true. That’s how we continuously push our limits of potential. But that doesn’t discredit the effort you have put in or the thoughts and consideration you pour into designing and crafting your gadgets.”

Donghyuck has pulled his legs up to his chest, resting his face on his knees as he looks sideways at Renjun, and the situation is very familiar. Renjun is taken back to that night when the light fairy had found him up on that high perch.

“I think you’re worthy of your title and more, Renjunnie.” Donghyuck says sweetly, and it takes all of Renjun’s willpower to not say anything out of the blue. Like how Donghyuck’s eyes seem to shine in the night despite how they’re facing away from the moon and stars (maybe it’s a light fairy thing? Renjun hopes that’s it).

“You always know exactly what to say. But not in the same way Jeno and Jaemin know. It takes me by surprise, but it’s an answer I feel like I know already exists within me. Only. I can’t process it nor think of it out loud.” Renjun leans against Donghyuck’s shoulder, relishing in the warmth the light fairy has to give. Donghyuck snuggles closer.

“Remember? My Renjun sense just knows.” Donghyuck murmurs.

Renjun feels the other fairy place an arm around his waist and feels the flutter of wings beat gently against his back.

A sudden peck on his forehead sends his mind momentarily reeling but before he can dwell on the soft feeling, the warmth is gone from his face and Donghyuck is looking off into the distance.

Renjun doesn’t push it, not when he can cuddle into Donghyuck’s warmth as the arm around his waist pulls him in tighter.

They can talk about this later. Right now, they can celebrate their hard work and blossoming friendship together, as the lights in the sky glow and the show is about to start.

**Author's Note:**

> it isn't much but i hope you enjoyed the light read! had a rushed ending so i didn't drag this out too long, wanted to set the tone for this universe  
(let me know if you're confused about any references)  



End file.
